| Fire Ex. – 島嶼天光 (Island's Sunrise) Lyrics | 8 months ago |
| After the FIRE Ex. song "Good Night Formosa" became the unofficial anthem for the Sunflower Student Movement in Taiwan, organizers asked FIRE Ex to write them a new song. The Sunflower movement was in opposition towards a trade deal between China and Taiwan that had been rushed without real oversight from the Taiwanese legislature by the Kuomintang party, controversial part of the treaty remained classified which stoked fears that it would erode self determination in Taiwan by allowing Chinese influence in media and other sectors related to national security. The band obliged the organizers of and collaborated with them to produce Island's Sunrise. The song was widely embraced by the movement and remains a prominent protest song in Taiwan. The song remains banned in China as of this comment being written. | |
| Fire Ex. – 島嶼天光 (Island's Sunrise) Lyrics | 8 months ago |
| After the FIRE Ex. song "Good Night Formosa" became the unofficial anthem for the Sunflower Student Movement in Taiwan, organizers asked FIRE Ex to write them a new song. The Sunflower movement was in opposition towards a trade deal between China and Taiwan that had been rushed without real oversight from the Taiwanese legislature by the Kuomintang party, controversial part of the treaty remained classified which stoked fears that it would erode self determination in Taiwan by allowing Chinese influence in media and other sectors related to national security. The band obliged the organizers of and collaborated with them to produce Island's Sunrise. The song was widely embraced by the movement and remains a prominent protest song in Taiwan. The song remains banned in China as of this comment being written. | |
| Fire Ex. – Let me Stand Up Like a Taiwanese (無名英雄 eng. Unsung Hero) Lyrics | 8 months ago |
| This song is from the punk band FIRE Ex. which hails from the Taiwanese port city of Kaohsiung, FIRE EX is politically aligned with the Taiwanese Independence Movement which aims to proclaim Taiwan as an independent country that does not claim rulership over China, this is opposed to the view that that Republic of China now based in Taiwan should rule over China and Taiwan. Kaohsiung was the location of a major crackdown on democracy activists during Taiwan's martial law period under the one party rule of the Kuomintang in 1979 and has broadly been more independence oriented. The line "Let me Stand up Like a Taiwanese" is a quotation from Peter Huang when he was tackled to the ground during an attempt to assassinate the then vice premier of of the Kuomintang, the son of the former generalissimo Chang Kai-Shek. The song's reference to unsung heroes is likely in reference to the average people who contributed to the democratization of Taiwan. Note also the song is sung in the Taiwanese Hoklo (Tâi-gú) language which is more prevalent in the south of Taiwan, during Taiwan's martial law period under the Kuomintang local languages like Hoklo, Hakka, and Taiwanese indigenous languages were suppressed in favor of Mandarin Chinese. | |
| Devotchka – How It Ends Lyrics | 8 months ago |
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I'm Christian and a Universalist, meaning I believe that ultimately within the Christian framework all will be saved aka go to heaven. I've seen this song appreciated a lot in Christian as appearing to describe the experience of assurance that one is indeed loved by God and that God's love is already carrying you. The song starts out by mentioning holding a grandmother's bible closely, for protestants at least this a bible and particularly a family heirloom is probably the most physical manifestation of their beliefs they can have. Putting it to test, alludes to points in the gospels weather attempting to walk on water or feeling Jesus's physical wounds are specific tests Jesus's followers used to determine if Jesus was indeed divine. Wanting the bible to be blessed to me alludes to the common feeling for religious folks in their honest moments where they hope that their trust in their beliefs can withstand reality as it is. Knowing what one should do, paired along with the description of faith in the first verse alludes to the claim held by Christians that God in what is called the Holy Spirit inhabits people and basically acts as a conscious that leads us to do the right thing. The song then progresses to speak about the slave catchers, lost loved ones, and million holes poked in one's soul. Life is not only physically hard but frequently bleak, marked by loss, oppression, powerlessness, and despair. But the crux of the Christian message relies on a man wrongly convicted and tortured rising from the dead, transcending and promising the same for all. When the song says "Forever is not too long" and "Come on it's time to go" I hear encouragement to be open to the possibilities of new life in the world to come. The chorus "you already know how this will end" changes in tone as the song progresses from, more melancholy to a more confident tone as the song progresses. This matches the content as towards the end the lyrics state there's a place in the sun for all that you've done and for oneself and one's dearest. Light is used as a metaphor in the gospels for God, in particular as something that exposes truth and brings clarity. The song doesn't seem to hint that the subject has been perfect so the statement "there's a place in the sun for all that you've done" suggests that both the good and bad and in-between all belong as a part of the fabric of existence so to speak. "Just ask and you'll receive" appears to be a paraphrasing of Matthew 7:7-8 and Luke 11:9-10 where Jesus states that those who seek will find. While I don't think the song is explicitly universalist. I think it appeals to Christians with more universalist tendencies since it emphasizes salvation as more of an inevitability and a respite. Christian universalists in my experience, tend to see life as more of a experience towards ultimate reconciliation with God, and that God through Christ not only understands our struggles but Himself bore them and bears ours with us. Anyways this is just my take away. Hard to think there isn't something religious going due to the language but like all art there's definitely many layers of interpretation. |
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| Arcade Fire – Unconditional I (Lookout Kid) Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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To me the song is essentially a the opposite of a lullaby, instead of lulling an infant to sleep this instead calls a child to wake up and face life. While acknowledging the inevitability of pain, mistakes, and heartbreak the voice in the song assures the child to trust body, mind, and soul to move through all. While not overtly heavy handed the song does have a brief summary of a theodicy (a justification of there being a loving God despite life sucking). “Some people want the rock but not the roll, but we all know there’s no God without the soul” This reminds me of the so called soul-making theodicy attributed to Ireaneus an early Christian theologian who believed that the trials of life are meant to shape our souls towards a more robust and holy state. While the voice singing the song could be thought of as the child’s parent, I like to think it’s the voice of Christ who could just as well be an uncle, an aunt, a friend, social worker taking the child into foster care, anyone who delivers Unconditional Love. The two final verses of the song, first describe the essence of what it means to love, to give what you have to give your time to give your own heart and then repeats the word unconditional repeatedly. To me this is brilliant way to show but not tell what big L love means. It’s the essential element that carried us through life. |
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